PSY 124 Social Psychology Lecture Notes PDF

PSY 124 – Social Psychology Lecture 1 Social brain hypothesis – our brains evolved to promote social connection, which was adaptive - If you can communicate and collaborate within a community, you are more likely to survive and succeed Social connections give us better mental and physical heal...

PSY 124 – Social Psychology Lecture 1 Social brain hypothesis – our brains evolved to promote social connection, which was adaptive - If you can communicate and collaborate within a community, you are more likely to survive and succeed Social connections give us better mental and physical health, lengthen our lives, prevent early aging - Workplace, romantic, family connections → all help to succeed What is Social Psychology? Social psychology: the scientific study of how individuals think, feel, and behave in a social context. scientific study → scientific method vs folk wisdom individuals → person-level, not society (micro versus macro) think, feel, behave → wide scope, not narrow. Looking at how you perceive the world, behaviour, morality, emotion - anything one does can be applied to social psychology social context → influence by/on others; real or imagined Folk Wisdom Quiz 1. People who read all the time have better people skills – T/F The more you read, the better you might understand people. People who read more have a better sense of interacting with others, empathy, and social situations. 2. People like tasks more when they get paid to do them The action changes from being internally driven to incentivized. Changes the dynamic - internal vs. external reward 3. Even if pushed a bit, you would refuse something cruel. A lot of people would do something if pushed due to social pressures, ideology, politics. EX: Milgram, Stanford Prison Experiment. 4. Birds of a feather flock together or opposites attract? Both are true. “I knew it all along” phenomenon. Informs and mutually informs multiple disciplines Cultural Psychology All social psych research has a cultural context Not recognized until 1990s onward Culture: system of enduring meanings, beliefs, values, assumptions, institutions, and practices shared by a large group of people Individualistic vs collectivist focus Individualistic Culture: Focus on individual as focus of discussion and attention (i.e., individual rights, oneself in isolation) Collectivist Culture: Living in society, group, living in cohesion. Independent vs interdependent self-concept A. Sense of self independent of others B. Interdependent - inherently connected to other people within their life Research Methods Theory: an organized set of principles used to explain observed phenomena - precise, efficient, explain all observations Hypothesis: explicit, testable, falsifiable prediction about what you will observe – based on theory Conceptual variables – the general topic, concept, idea (e.g., mood, empathy, self-esteem) Operationalization: making the general specific – how are you defining and measuring the variable? (e.g., how do you measure empathy) Construct validity – degree to which you are actually measuring (or manipulating) what you intend to Measurement Self-report – ask people to report their feelings, thoughts, beliefs, and actions. Pros: convenience, consistency Cons: social desirability, sensitive to changes in wording and scales, subject to memory distortion, dishonesty Observational research: watch actual behaviour. Pros: avoids social desirability and memory errors Cons: people may change behaviour if know they are observed Inter-rater reliability: level of agreement between multiple people on the same behaviour or measure. Why? Archival Research: Study existing documents or records to find patterns related to your variables of interest (e.g., crime reports, charitable giving, public surveys) pros: good external validity, generalizability cons: no control over data collection, observer bias, random sampling Correlational studies Correlational research measures the association between variables that are not manipulated by the researcher Correlation coefficient (r )– number that represents how strongly related two variables are; ranges from -1.0 to + 1.0 Third variable problem: when a correlation between two variables is explained by a third, unmeasured variable. Pros: can study topics ethically, view trends Cons: directionality, 3rd variable problem, correlation is not causation Experimentation Gold standard for finding cause and effect 1) Random assignment to condition 2) Independent variables – what is manipulated 3) Dependent variables – what is measured Confidence in results What makes us feel confident in our results? Internal reliability: degree to which the study is designed to make a cause-effect conclusion Confound: some unintended factor that influenced the results, varies with the independent variable Double blind: neither participant nor experimenter knows condition; avoids experimenter expectancy effects External reliability: would these results be found in different circumstances? ○ Experimental realism – was the study real and engaging for the participant? ○ Mundane realism – does the study resemble the real world? Meta analyses and lit reviews Replication crisis and open science Research ethics Research Ethics Boards Informed consent/Debriefing Deception & Confederates Funding and Conflicts PSY 124 – Social Psychology Lecture 2 The Self Concept: Self-Concept: the total sum of a person’s beliefs about their own attributes (like a library), made up of schemas Self-schema: specific beliefs about yourself (like a book), you have many self-schemas; guide the way we think about things Self concept is malleable! Origins of Self-Concept: Introspection & Forecasting Affective forecasting: predicting how you would feel in response to future events (Wilson & Gilbert, 2003) We’re pretty bad at it. Why? Impact bias. Behavioural forecasting: predicting how you would act in a given situation. We’re pretty bad at this too! Origins of Self-Concept: Self-Perception Bem (1972) – you learn about yourself by watching your own behaviour. Self-perception theory: when internal cues are hard to see or interpret, we will look at our behaviour to understand ourselves Origins of Self-Concept: Self-perception – why did I do that? Intrinsic motivation – engage in an activity because you enjoy it Extrinsic motivation – engage in activity because of reward/punishment Overjustification effect: when intrinsic motivation decreases when an external reward is provided Overjustification Lepper et al. (1973) T1: play with markers T2: Manipulation Group 1: kids play with markers Group 2: offered a reward for coloring Group 3: received unexpected reward T3: color again Origins of Self-Concept: Social Comparison Theory Social comparison theory: people evaluate their abilities and opinions by comparing themselves to others (Festinger, 1954) Upward social comparison – compare to someone more successful Downward social comparison – compare to someone less successful Origins of Self-Concept: Autobiographical Memory Autobiographical memory: memory of your own personal history Distorted to inflate your achievements Recency effect, with exceptions Flashbulb memories  Culture and the Self-Concept Individualistic – values independence, personal achievements, being unique, distinct Collectivistic – values interdependence, group cohesion, modesty Where does the self concept come from? Introspection Self-perception Social comparison Autobiographical memories Culture Self-Esteem Self-esteem – an affective component of the self, made up of positive and negative self-evaluations, mostly stable over life, 8 different domains State vs. trait self esteem Sociometer theory – people are inherently social and want approval from others; self-esteem is related to how much we are accepted (Leary & Baumeister, 2000) Self-Discrepancy Theory (Higgins, 1989) Who you are right now Who you ought to be (duties, responsibilities, obligations) Who would you like to be ideally? Self Awareness Theory Self-awareness theory: when you are made aware of yourself, you compare yourself to a high standard—usually reduces self esteem (mirror, bright lights, images of eyes) Two outcomes: ◦ Change behaviour to meet standards ◦ Withdraw from self awareness (avoidance, self-medicating) Self-Enhancement tricks Better than average effect – tendency to believe that you are better than most people at various abilities Self-serving beliefs/bias – tendency to take credit for success and make excuses for failures Self handicapping - engaging in actions that will sabotage your performance Self Regulation Self-regulation: process by which people control their thoughts, feelings, desires, and behaviour to achieve a personal/social goal  - limited resource that can be depleted Self-Presentation Self-presentation: process by which you try to shape what other people think of you (and what you think of yourself) - aka “impression management” Strategic - to get power, influence, sympathy, approval Goals: ingratiation, self-promotion Self-Verification Self-verification – the desire to have others see us as we truly perceive ourselves to be - People select and accept personality feedback that confirms what they believe about themselves, even if it is negative - Can conflict with self-enhancement motivation when self-concept is poor/negative Self Monitoring Self-monitoring: tendency to regulate behavior to meet the demands of the social situation High self-monitors: have many selves to choose from, see it as pragmatic and flexible Low self-monitors: less concerned about what others think of their behavior, see selves as principled and honest PSY 124 – Social Psychology September 19, 2024 Lecture 3 Person Perception Thin Slices & Physical Appearance Thin slices – process of making quick inferences about the traits and characteristics of a person with minimal information. Within a few seconds, you are about as accurate as you are much longer. Impression of person influenced by: ◦ baby faced vs mature ◦ emotional display (happy vs angry) Perceiving Situations We also perceive situations – this can influence person perception cultural scripts (culture of honor, face) ➔ Scripts: Expectation for how things should go event scripts (e.g., first date) what is appropriate/expected in that situation? If shown a picture of a person, your perception can change based upon the situation they are in. Situational cues affect perception. Who has a “mind”? Mind perception: process of attributing human-like mental states to things and people. We give personhood to things we think have agency or/and experience. 2 dimensions: A) Agency – things can do stuff or have the ability to do things (ie., a car, a doll)  B) Experience – things can/have experienced things and emotions Non-verbal behaviour Non-verbal behaviour – actions that reveal a person’s feelings without using words ◦ Facial cues, body language, gaze, eye contact, vocal cues, emblems ◦ Six basic emotions recognized worldwide: happy, sadness, anger, disgust, fear, surprise ◦ Emojis – to show these in writing Deception Detection Can you tell when a person is lying? How? We are actually no better than chance! There are no cues for deception but there may be auditory cues Attribution Theories Attribution theories: attempt to explain how people interpret the causes of behavior. How do you understand someone's motivations or behaviour? Internal attributions (“dispositional”) infer that behaviour was result of the person’s internal disposition & traits External attributions (“situational”) infer that behaviour was the result of the situation or social context & pressures Correspondent Inference Theory (Jones & Davis, 1965) Correspondence bias: The tendency to assume that someone’s behaviour corresponds to their internal disposition (ie., assuming a high school student is volunteering out of charity - but they may just be doing it for credit) Consider: Freedom of choice What behaviour was expected? Anticipated effects? Covariation Model (Kelley, 1967) Three sources of “covariation” information: 1. Consensus – how do other people behave toward this stimulus? 2. Distinctiveness – how does the actor respond to other stimuli? 3. Consistency – how often does this behaviour happen around this stimulus? Jones & Harris (1967) Question: How sensitive are we to situational pressures on others? Independent variable 1: Tone of essay (pro-Castro or anti-Castro) Independent variable 2: Author’s choice of topic (free choice or assigned) Dependent variable: What do you think the author really feels about this topic?  Attribution Errors Fundamental attribution error: tendency to overestimate personal factors & underestimate situational factors on behaviour (ie., assuming someone who cut a car off is brash, bad person, rather than they’re late, having a baby, etc). Actor-observer bias: overestimate role of personal factors when evaluating other people, but not when evaluating your own behaviour. Ultimate attribution error: personal factors explain your good outcomes; situation explains poor outcomes (can extend to ingroups). Counterfactual thinking: tendency to imagine alternative events or outcomes that might have happened but did not. ◦ Causes regret or relief Just world beliefs: tendency to think the world is a just place; bad things do not happen without cause. Attribution Biases Two ways to process information: System 1: quick, easy, automatic System 2: slower, controlled, effortful Heuristic errors ◦ Availability heuristic: tendency to estimate the likelihood that an event will occur by how easily we can think of instances of it. ◦ False consensus effect: overestimate the degree to which other people share your opinion ◦ Base rate fallacy: insensitivity to numeric base rates/odds Confirmation Biases Confirmation bias: tendency to seek, interpret, and create information that verifies your existing beliefs Belief perseverance: maintaining beliefs even after they have been discredited Impression formation Information integration theory: our impressions are based on a weighted average of the person’s traits Central traits: exert a powerful influence on impression Negativity bias: negative traits are more informative Implicit personality theories: how traits thought to cluster Impression Formation Primacy effect: words presented early in a sequence influence the interpretation of information presented later. Asch (1948): parts told a person is either:  “intelligent, industrious, impulsive, critical, stubborn, and envious” OR “envious, stubborn, critical, impulsive, industrious and intelligent” Self-Fulfilling Prophecy Self-fulfilling prophecy: process by which your expectations about a person lead them to behave in ways that confirm your expectations (works for the self as well!)